BANGLADESH

The US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs Robert O Blake met with prime minister Sheikh Hasina at the parliament building on Tuesday.

"No terrorists or extremists would be allowed to use Bangladesh's land," her deputy press secretary M Nazrul Islam quoted her as telling the US diplomat in the meeting that focused on bilateral issues.

She pointed out that a number of laws to this end have been passed and added that her government was showing 'zero-tolerance' towards terrorism.

Hasina also said that the Bangladeshi government has decided in principle to open an embassy in Afghanistan.

"Nothing like the bombings that occurred when the BNP-Jamaat government was in power has happened in this government's tenure," she reportedly said.

The issue of killings at the Bangladesh-India border also came up in the meeting, the spokesperson added.

"We are continuing our efforts to stop border killings. Some incidents took place even after India's top leadership gave their assurance. We are trying to solve them," he quoted the prime minister as saying.

She asked Blake for his help to get quota-free entry for Bangladeshi apparel products to the US market without duty.

Prime minister Hasina declined a request from Blake to write to the US government to deploy US Peace Corps in Bangladesh. She reasoned that Washington withdrew them during the BNP-led regime on security reasons even though theywere here in 1998 during her previous tenure.

The US ambassador to Dhaka Dan W Mozena and ambassador-at-large M Ziauddin were present.